


Love Letters To Ghosts

by trustsherlockholmes



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Love Confessions, Love Letters, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 17:58:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/981924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustsherlockholmes/pseuds/trustsherlockholmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's therapist thinks that perhaps writing out his unspoken thoughts and feelings will aid him in moving on from the one person who mattered most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Letters To Ghosts

I hear you sometimes, you know. I hear you playing your violin. Usually around 3 in the morning. Sometimes it’s when I can’t sleep, sometimes it’s after a nightmare. That makes me wonder if when I used to catch you playing late downstairs it was because I had woke up screaming. You would be useful to chase them away now. I still have it, your violin. I keep it in its case under my bed. I take it out and polish it every so often. I know you wouldn’t have it any other way. Mrs. Hudson tried to give it away to the music shop down the street, but I wouldn’t let her take it. Not that. She had already gotten rid of your microscope and beakers. I never thought I would be so miserable to see a clean kitchen. 

They ask me why I don’t leave London. Harry came by to visit the other day and tried to help me look up other flats on the internet. She left after I snapped at her. I wanted to feel bad for it, but I didn’t. I can’t leave London. This is all I have. If I couldn’t walk down the street and see a corner and think ‘Sherlock slipped and fell there. He dared me to laugh’, I’d go mad. But it hurts all the same. Maybe I’m a masochist. It’s just nice to feel something. 

The therapist told me to do this, to get some of this off my mind. Write you letters. Like you’re _here_ , merely on holiday. I’m writing to a ghost. If it wasn’t for the pictures in the paper, I wouldn’t believe you were real. You were a vision – an anomaly. How did you exist, Sherlock? In this dull cesspool? Where did you _come_ from? 

I tried. I’ve tried so hard to forget and move on, even while you were still here, sprawled on the sofa. If I had known, I would have never prodded you to get up. I would have kept you here, and made you tea whenever you wanted, and put honey in it at times, because you loved surprises and honey. You had a sweet tooth the size of England. 

And she dared to ask me what I never said to you that I wanted to. Like she would understand what you did for me. How you killed my loneliness. You grabbed my sleeve and _made_ me live, Sherlock. How could you take that away? You always were so unfair, with your contradictions and your logic and your eyes. I suppose it wouldn’t be enough to tell you I love you. It wasn’t just love. Love was meager in comparison. Insignificant. It was this _feeling_ , this obsession. You replaced the heart in my chest with a sun, Sherlock. You illuminated and warmed every bit of me, the darkest parts. You burned me out with your _fire_ and inhabited me. And I loved you for it – craved it. I wanted you. Selfishly. Fiercely. I wanted to touch you. I wanted to count every single damn curl on your head and twirl them around my finger. I wanted to taste the lines and curves of you. I wanted to crack open your chest and _see_ what made you, how you functioned, and live there, _god_ Sherlock. 

I talk to God. I ask him for guidance and help. But I have a feeling he just shakes his head sadly at me. At this pathetic creature he created. I am nothing without you. I need you. I’m empty. Everyone knows it. It’s not exactly a secret. They let me keep my job and live here because they pity me. Poor John Watson. ‘Such a proud Captain, brought so low’. Idiots. I was proudest by your side. 

It’s been three years. I haven’t seen the sun in three years. I’m lost. And I’m too much of a coward to do anything real about it. The fact that you are gone has finally settled like stone in my stomach. It’s weighing me down, and it’s not going to change. It’s late. I have work. Insomnia and nightmares is a bitch. You looked at me like I was insane when I told you that. I miss you. I love you. I believe in you. 

\- John


End file.
